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Her sanction was Ali and she was an ally.
Allison Murphy was a passionate and tireless advocator for the LGBTQ2+ assemblage — peculiarly for those who are transgender — successful grant of her daughter, Chloe Anne Lacey, who took her ain beingness successful 2010 aft struggling for years with her sex identity.
After Lacey’s death, Murphy made it her life’s enactment to make a amended satellite for transgender and gender-expansive people. She attended and participated successful LGBTQ events similar Fresno Reel Pride Film Festival, the Fresno Rainbow Pride Parade, Trans-E-Motion and wherever other she could to enactment and to stock Lacey’s story.
It was done her advocacy that she met Robin McGehee, a nationally-recognized LGBTQ rights advocator and Fresno State alumna; Dr. Peter Robertson, improvement manager astatine Fresno State; and Dr. Katherine Fobear, prof and coordinator of the LGBTQ2+ Studies minor successful the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies astatine Fresno State.
They bonded passim the years. And, unneurotic with different allies and friends, they became the founding funders of the archetypal LGBTQ2+ Studies Endowed Scholarship astatine Fresno State successful 2023. But Murphy wanted to bash much to supply security, enactment and accidental for students similar her daughter.
Diagnosed with Stage 4 terminal bosom crab 8 years ago, Murphy decided to see a proviso successful her property plans to found the Allison Murphy and Chloe Anne Lacey Scholarship Fund. The endowed memorial assistance money volition enactment Fresno State students with a declared insignificant successful LGBTQ2+ studies.
“She’s dying the mode she lived, which is simply a beauteous thing,” said McGehee, who archetypal met Murphy 10 years agone astatine the screening of “Trans,” a documentary astir transgender lives that included Lacey’s communicative and Murphy’s devotion to combat for her daughter’s dignity. “[Ali’s] reasoning astir the livelihood of queer youth. She saw what was happening astatine Fresno State, and wanted to endorse that effort by giving of her clip and work, but besides financially.”
Murphy died connected Oct. 21.
“It’s a immense grant and benignant of overwhelming due to the fact that of the bequest that Ali and Chloe some supply to this scholarship,” Fobear said. “We truly privation to marque definite to grant that bequest and to transportation forth. Having that fiscal enactment done a assistance helps students with graduation requirements, but it’s besides a mode to affirm that what they’re doing and who they are is truthful powerful.”
Fobear met Murphy astatine a fundraiser to footwear disconnected the authoritative motorboat of the LGBTQ2+ Studies insignificant past year. She was an enthusiastic protagonist of the programme and was particularly excited astir the caller transgender studies people this fall, Fobear said. The precocious part penning people has students enrolled from majors each crossed campus, she said.
“What’s truly chill astir LGBTQ 2+ studies is that we person a blend of students who place successful that community, who privation to spot themselves successful the program due to the fact that there’s conscionable not a batch of opportunities to larn astir their community,” Fobear said. “We besides person a immense cohort of students who instrumentality the minor, not due to the fact that they place arsenic a subordinate of that community, but they privation to amended service that community.”
Robertson met Murphy astatine the Fresno Reel Pride Film Festival galore years agone and remembers her arsenic being joyful, welcoming and embracing — a existent state and advocate. He is simply a co-founder of the festival, but besides researched allyship for his doctoral dissertation.
“A bully state is lasting with idiosyncratic you know,” Robertson said, “but a large state is lasting for radical you don’t know.”
Memorial donations tin beryllium made astatine the Allison Murphy and Chloe Ann Lacey Scholarship Fund. For much accusation connected further ways to marque an interaction connected LGBTQ2+ studies, interaction Dr. Peter Robertson astatine probertson@mail.fresnostate.edu oregon 559.278.4669.
(Portrait by creator Arien Reed.)
